


A Form of Alchemy

by Grundy



Series: Balar [3]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Balar, Cooking, First Age, Gen, early War of Wrath, family is what we make it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 07:06:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17178200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grundy/pseuds/Grundy
Summary: Whatever Elrond and Elros were expecting when Celebrimbor invited them to dinner, this wasn't it.





	A Form of Alchemy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jane_ways](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jane_ways/gifts).



> A belated holiday gift for [jane-ways](https://jane-ways.tumblr.com/). (I think I have managed to be fashionably late for _all_ the holidays at this point. Except New Years - Happy New Year?)

“Hello? Celebrimbor?”

“In the kitchen, Elrond.”

Celebrimbor tried not to snicker at the startled look on his young cousin’s face as he appeared in the doorway.

“Even the greatest smiths have to eat sometime,” he pointed out with gentle amusement.

“Well, yes, but…” Elrond trailed off.

“But he assumed you’d have servants doing the cooking,” Elros announced blithely, sauntering in behind his brother.

While Elros was _aware_ of the concepts of tact and diplomacy, he didn’t generally beat around the bush when it was ‘just family’ – family according to his definition, at any rate.

Thus far, it appeared that aside from Elrond, that extended to Gil-galad, and to Celebrimbor himself, but not much farther. Gildor was included, but that might just be out of a healthy fear of what Galadriel might do if she found out they were treating her nephew as anything but kin. (The same could not be said for her parents. Celebrimbor could tell it bothered his great-aunt and uncle to be held so very carefully at arm’s length.)

“I know perfectly well the pair of you had cookery lessons from the time you were small until you were sent here,” Celebrimbor replied evenly. “Why would you assume I did not?”

In speaking with Elrond – and Elros, when he’s in a sharing mood, though that wasn’t often – he’d discovered their educations had been rather similar if one allowed for differing natural talents and interests. Not surprising, really, when you considered they had all been raised by sons of Fëanaro and Nerdanel.

 “I’ve never seen you cook before,” Elrond shrugged.

“What are you making?” Elros asked, seating himself cheerfully on the counter with a disconcerting lack of regard for hygiene.

“There are chairs _there_ -” Celebrimbor indicated with the paring knife. “And I know perfectly well my uncle would have words if he could see you right now.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know the lecture by heart – in more than one language, even. I’ll get my tunic dirty, I’ll contaminate the food – which I won’t, by the way, I just finished dressing before we came in and I did nothing but walk straight here without stopping – and I definitely know better.”

Elros was unabashed as he relocated to one of the chairs.

“I still want to know what you’re making. That’s a gracious plenty of those roots. I didn’t think they were in season.”

“They’re not,” Elrond said with a roll of his eyes. “You dig them in Quellë.”

“Oh, right. Are you going to bake them?”

Celebrimbor shook his head and went back to peeling.

“No. I’m going to cook them in butter and milk, and mash them.”

Both twins regarded him with mild surprise.

“I haven’t seen them done that way before,” Elros said.

“You wouldn’t have,” Celebrimbor. “You were taught how to cook by Noldor. This is a Sindarin way of preparing them.”

“How did you learn it?” Elrond asked curiously.

“From Queen Merelin,” Celebrimbor said quietly. “Grab aprons, both of you. If you’re going to hang about, you can help. Besides, Merelin would probably say it was high time you learned something about how your mother’s people eat.”

“Merelin?” Elros asked in surprise. “Our kinswoman Merelin?”

 “Gil-galad’s mother,” Celebrimbor told them. “I suppose she probably is? She was related to Thingol and married to Orodreth, you’d know better than I would if she’s kin to you.”

“She’s related to us in the same degree as Celeborn,” Elrond announced after a moment of thought. “They are both cousins of our grandmother Nimloth.”

Elrond had pulled an apron on as asked, but Elros chose to shuck his overtunic instead.

“No one’s going to see the undertunic,” he declared at Celebrimbor’s slightly reproving look. “And it’s not like I can get that dirty just peeling!”

Elrond didn’t even bother trying to smother his laugh. Elros made a face at him and then plowed on.

“Anyway, why did Aunt Merelin teach you how to cook? I thought you learned from your uncle.”

“She didn’t teach me how to _cook_ , I learned that in Himlad as a boy. She taught me how to prepare this particular dish. Gildor and I came with her and Gil-galad to the Falas when he was sent there for safety. We both learned a bit of Sindarin cookery from her before the Year of Disaster.”

 _Year of Disaster_ was how the elves of Balar styled the calamitous year following the Nirnaeth. The losses in the Fifth Battle had been grievous enough, but the loss of what had remained of the protection of the Noldor had left most elves outside of Doriath suddenly vulnerable to the hordes streaming down from the North. Finrod’s people had retreated to their hidden halls; the Falas had been assaulted and unable to turn back the attack.

He didn’t like to think on that time at all. His brief time in the Falas had been bookended by upheaval – two more times he’d had to flee just when he’d been starting to settle in.

\---

Tyelperinquar followed Orodreth’s wife nervously through the streets of Brithombar. He still wasn’t entirely sure that coming here was a good idea, not when he could _see_ people doing double takes and whispering at the sight of him, but it was a bit late to change his mind now. He’d finally begun to feel somewhat at home in Nargothrond…

“Keep up, please, boys! You’re supposed to be setting little Gilya a good example, not showing him how to dawdle or wander off.”

Merelin was moving briskly, her progress toward Cirdan’s house arrow-true.

Glancing to his side, Tyelperinquar saw Gildor roll his eyes to the heavens – but the younger ner held his tongue, choosing not to point out that he was of an age with her grown daughter Finduilas (and his Fëanorion kinsman begotten in the light of the Trees even older.) The pair of them were well past needing a guardian in an unfamiliar city.

‘Gilya’ himself was fighting down a blush at hearing his mother name him so in public, his eyes darting around in the hopes that no one aside from his cousins had taken notice.

The charitable explanation for Merelin’s unusual tetchiness was that she was uneasy at the separation from her mate, and leaving her stubborn daughter behind. She hadn’t liked Orodreth’s reasoning, but she hadn’t been able to find fault with it. But even so, Gil-galad was hardly a babe in arms. At nearly twenty, he was old enough to ask directions if he ended up on his own.

Not that _that_ was likely – Tyelperinquar and Gildor each had one of the boy’s hands firmly in their own, leaving Merelin unencumbered for greetings, diplomatic niceties, and in general being in charge.

But Tyelperinquar didn’t imagine Gildor was much happier to be here than he was. They had been given even less choice than Merelin in the matter of relocating. Orodreth had ordered them both to accompany Gil-galad, leaving Tyelperinquar little option but to obey or to take back his bold words about his father and retreat meekly to Amon Ereb.

Gildor had argued. Fiercely, even. (Anyone who mistakenly thought that the Arafinwions didn’t have tempers would have been startled by that particular showdown.) But it had done him little good. The usually affable, amiable Orodreth had for once put his foot firmly and unalterably _down,_ much to the surprise of his daughter and his younger cousins.

Tyelperinquar had been rather sorry Gildor had dragged him into the debate, because he hadn’t intended to create more trouble. Though as it happened, he’d actually gotten a bit of peace of mind out of it as it wound down.

“Your father wanted you in the Havens – and felt it would be best if Tyelpë went with you!” Orodreth had snapped at Gildor when his desperate arguments had strained his patience at the last. “You may storm all you like, but I am king now and I will be obeyed! As for Tyelpë, he’s a different matter altogether.”

At that point, Orodreth had actually looked somewhat discomfited.

“I was inclined to allow you to remain here if you wanted to stay, Tyelpë, but after this latest news about Beren and Luthien both dying I fear too many in Nargothrond may be inclined to make you a scapegoat.”

“But I repudiated my father!” Tyelperinquar had protested.

“You did – but to people looking for someone other than themselves to blame for not them not having supported Uncle and Luthien sooner…”

Orodreth sighed.

“Please. If it takes an order, I order you to go. If the situation here blows over, you will be more than welcome to return. But at least for now, I think you are safer in the Falas than in my halls. And I know neither my father nor my uncle would wish you to come to harm.”

Once Orodreth invoked Uncle Ango and Uncle Ingo, Tyelperinquar had known there was little point to further debate. Orodreth was far from a decisive leader, but whenever he felt certain of the course his father or his uncle would have chosen, he stuck almost reflexively to it. It would take far more persuasive arguments than ‘but I don’t want to go’ to shift him.

Besides, he’d had a point that it would be hard on Gilya to be sent away to the Havens on his own. Gildor had tried arguing that if Gilya were the main concern, surely Finduilas should be coming with them, but Finduilas had already carried her point with her father. Being the apple of her father’s eye had its advantages, and if she hadn’t been able to persuade her father her cousins should stay, she’d still managed to arrange her own situation to suit herself.

So here they were, trailing obediently along after Merelin to greet their host Cirdan like the good guests they were.

Or, more accurately, to try to greet him – for when they reached his house, they found the Lord of the Havens was currently at sea and not expected back for several days.

His steward greeted Merelin’s look of consternation with the soothing reassurance that her arrival with her household had been looked for, and a house readied for her. The good woman showed them to their new home without delay, and stayed only long enough to show them that the kitchen was well stocked and the luggage that had been sent ahead stowed neatly against their arrival before leaving them to themselves to settle in.

Merelin looked rather as if she would have liked nothing better than to sink into a chair and stay there, but it had been a long day and Gil-galad was young enough that he at least needed supper before he could be sent to bed.

“Gildor, could you kindly see that the beds are made up? Gilya can help you sort out who should sleep where.”

She paused, then glanced at Tyelperinquar as the other two headed for the stairs to investigate the bedrooms.

“Celebrimbor, you’ll help me prepare dinner.”

He blinked, unused to hearing his name rendered in the Sindarin when he wasn’t in public.

“I’m sorry, young one, but you’re going to have to get accustomed to it. There may be some Noldor here, but the Falas is Lindarin, full of people who won’t countenance conversations in the language of the Ship-thieves. You and Gildor will _both_ need to mind your tongues outside of this house – and possibly even in it, if I can engage anyone to help with the housework or tutor Gilya.”

“Yes, of course,” Tyelperinquar murmured, trying to swallow his disappointment. His name was one of the last things he had left – and the only piece of him his mother might recognize.

Merelin sighed.

“I do not say this out of harshness, Celebrimbor. I know you are used to your own tongue – much like my daughter. But she at least has some protection, being partly Lindarin herself. Should the wrong person hear _you_ of all people violating the Ban, now especially, it will go badly.”

“I understand, my lady,” Tyelperinquar replied.

“I suppose you do,” she said, not sounding at all pleased about it. “I am sorry, for what little good it does. Please don’t turn all stiff and formal on me when I’m only trying to look after you. I know I’m not your mother, but I _am_ your kinswoman. I mean to do my best by you.”

“I can ask no more,” he assured her, because with her son no longer there to see, she looked older, tired, and even a little frightened – though he couldn’t think why. “What do you mean us to do for dinner? Most of what I see in this kitchen is new to me.”

That at least drew a slight smile from Merelin.

“It would be, wouldn’t it? You’ve spent all your time in Noldorin realms, and inland at that.”

She looked around, taking stock of what was available.

“Let’s see… yes, there’s enough here to whip together something simple for tonight. We’ll worry about tomorrow in the morning.”

“Things may look better after we’ve had a good sleep,” Tyelperinquar offered hopefully.

It was a maxim he’d heard repeated all his life, though it had proved wrong more than once.

“True enough,” she replied, with something like relief in her voice. “Peel half a dozen or so of those orange tubers. You’re a quick study, I’ll show you an easy dish to prepare.”

Tyelperinquar looked at where she was pointing, and found a basket full of roots he had not encountered before. He found a scraper to peel them with in the third drawer he tried, while Merelin bustled about looking for whatever else was necessary for what she had in mind.

\---

“I believe Merelin taught Erestor this dish as well, so if you’d prefer to learn from the written word, seek him out,” Celebrimbor told the twins. “I would be surprised if he hasn’t got a little volume marked ‘ _Recipes of the Lindar as Prepared by Queen Merelin’_ stashed away somewhere.”

He decided not to warn them that Erestor might well get a little teary about it. He’d been very fond of Merelin, who had taken Cirdan’s ward under her wing as a nephew. Erestor had taken her death almost as hard as Gil-galad.

Elrond’s smile was a tad uncertain, for he still hadn’t quite made up his mind about Gil-galad’s self-appointed guardian. Elros didn’t _quite_ avoid him.

“How many of these do we need to peel?” Elros asked.

“All of what I’ve set out,” Celebrimbor told him. “I calculated for how many I’m expecting.”

“I thought it was just a family dinner,” Elros huffed. “That’s what you said when you asked us!”

“It is,” Celebrimbor snorted. “You do realize Uncle Ara and Aunt Eärwen are family, to you as well as to me?”

Elros’s dismissive wave accidentally flung a bit of peel across the kitchen, much to his twin’s amusement.

“ _Everyone_ claims to be our kin,” he sniffed. “Generally when trying to get us to side with them in whatever’s being argued at the moment.”

Elrond might not have said it, but Celebrimbor suspected he privately agreed.

“Arafinwë is kin to you through Itarillë,” Celebrimbor told them evenly. “Eärwen is the daughter of Olwë of Alqualondë, the brother of Thingol. They are kin to you even when not trying to argue anything, and as Aunt Eärwen has yet to take any part in the arguments that I’ve seen, you should at least agree to her being family.”

There was one of those silences that remind him of his youth, of his twin uncles babysitting him and the way they could talk without talking.

“It is hard to think of Olwë as a relation when we have never seen him,” Elrond said at last. “Or Thingol either. They are not family we _know_.”

“Eärwen is here,” Celebrimbor couldn’t help pointing out. “You might get to know her.”

“We are not sure if we should,” Elros said with unwonted seriousness. “If it is a question of her or Aunt Galadriel…”

Ah. Yes, there was that. It had escaped no one’s notice that Galadriel has not been seen since her parents arrived, though she has occasionally been heard from. There’s been some quiet head-scratching and a bit of not so quiet speculation as to why. Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that the Eärendilion twins didn’t know what to make of that.

“I doubt very much that is the case,” Celebrimbor assured them. “I have only ever heard Galadriel speak of her mother with great fondness.”

Which made her current absence all the more puzzling – especially since there was no way Galadriel didn’t _know_ both her parents were present.

There was a slight lifting of the mental atmosphere that let Celebrimbor hope his aunt might have a chance at more than mere innocuous pleasantries – which were all she’d succeeded in drawing from the twins thus far.

The boys finished the last of the peeling, and Elros even obligingly retrieved the stray peel from the other side of the kitchen.

“Right, chop those into chunks, not too big – a bit more than fingerwidth,” Celebrimbor instructed.

Watching Elros’ technique, he added with some asperity, “without chopping your fingers, please!”

Elros stuck out his tongue.

“Haven’t yet!” he retorted cheerfully.

“ _Yet_ being the key word if you keep that up,” Elrond muttered.

“I’m certain you were taught better,” Celebrimbor tutted. “And your brother’s right, continue working the blade like that and you’re bound to miss and damaged your fingers sooner or later. It’s all well and good if you can tell a story about fingers you lost in battle, but you’re going to look rather silly admitting to having lost them in a kitchen mishap.”

He rescued the paring knife from Elros’ careless grip and demonstrated better technique – not that he thought Elros hadn’t been shown the proper way to chop. Maedhros’ kitchens would never have allowed him to get away with such sloppiness.

Elros accepted the correction with good humor and indulged the pair of them by chopping with pointed care for the next few minutes.

“So Merelin taught you how to cook Sindarin style?” he asked after a few minutes in which the knives were the only sound.

“Cook, fish, bargain…” Celebrimbor began ticking off skills Merelin had been responsible for, and not just his education – she’d also been teaching Gildor and eventually Erestor as well as her own son. “I learned a fair bit from her, and probably would have learned more if she hadn’t been killed.”

“What happened to her?”

For once, it was Elrond asking – though both twins were surely curious. But having grown up with dead or missing parents themselves, they were hardly going to pry with Gil about his mother’s death.

“She was trapped by burning wreckage in the fall of the Falas,” Celebrimbor found himself saying as calmly as if it were something that someone else had witnessed. “She shielded Gil-galad, pushing him clear of the worst of the falling debris. We were able to shift enough to reach Gil, but we couldn’t get to her in time.”

“Is that why Erestor looks after Gil-galad so carefully?” asked Elros thoughtfully.

“Erestor…” Celebrimbor paused, wondering how best to explain him to the boys. “Erestor likes taking care of his family, and he doesn’t have much family to look after.”

He decided not to mention his certainty that Erestor would happily extend that care to them if they’d quit pushing him away.

Both twins were quiet again.

“I’ll be kinder to Erestor,” Elros announced penitently. “I thought he was just another busybody.”

Celebrimbor snorted.

“If that were the case, Gil wouldn’t put up with him, and Gildor or I would have told him off. You two finish chopping, I’ll heat the butter.”

Elrond and Elros were just finishing by the time the butter was at a good temperature, and Celebrimbor directed them to fetch the milk and salt while he tipped the entire lot in to sauté.

“So you and Gildor and Erestor and Gil-galad have all been together since the year Luthien died?” Elros asked conversationally.

To anyone who didn’t know him, it probably would sound like a casual question.

“Mmm,” Celebrimbor confirmed. “Since the year she died the _first_ time. Before your grandfather was born.”

He was never entirely sure, when talking with the twins, how much of their family history they do or don’t know, and which bits were ‘real’ to them. As far as he could make out, Maedhros and Makalaurë were real, Gil-galad was real, Galadriel and Celeborn were real, Sirion was real, and their mother was real, though fast receding into the fuzziness of earliest childhood memory. He’s not sure about Eärendil, and as for their grandparents…

“Would it really have been _dying_ the first time, or just stepping out of her body for a bit?” Elros wondered. “She was part maia, she could do that, couldn’t she?”

As to _that_ , Celebrimbor was wholly unprepared to guess.

“I don’t know, I suppose you’d have to ask Melian,” he said idly, sprinkling salt over the now buttery cubes.

“I can’t, can I?” Elros grumbled. “She’s gone just like all the rest, even if her gone is like Naneth, not _dead_ like everyone else.”

“Start a list and ask her all your questions when you meet her,” Celebrimbor suggested. “I don’t know what to say, Elros – I never encountered Melian, and I didn’t see all that much of Luthien either.”

“But you were in Nargothrond while she was there,” Elrond protested.

“I was spending most of my time in the crafthalls or with Finduilas and Gildor,” Celebrimbor said firmly. “I was neither old enough nor interesting enough to entertain the Princess of the Sindar. Her attention was elsewhere.”

“Beren,” Elros nodded.

Celebrimbor smirked.

“In part. But as far as I could tell, she spent most of her time with my uncle Tyelko.”

That left Elros spluttering badly enough that Celebrimbor was forced to shoo him away from the food – with surprisingly enthusiastic assistance from Elrond, who expressed a firm desire ‘to not have my dinner coated with your spit’.

 “A sentiment I suspect Uncle Ara and Aunt Eärwen would share if they knew,” Celebrimbor added drily. “Keep away from the food if you’re going to be histrionic, Elros.”

“Tyelk- _Celegorm!_ ” was closest to coherent commentary from Elros.

“Pour the milk over, Elrond,” Celebrimbor continued, “and _you_ better be the one to uncover the pot and stir every four to five minutes until they’re cooked through. It won’t take long, no more than twenty minutes at the most.”

Elros was too distractible to be trusted with that task, even when he wasn’t working himself up to a fine outrage about the general reprehensibleness of Celegorm Fëanorion. And if the cooking roots weren’t stirred periodically – and the heat kept at the proper level besides – they’d cook unevenly and the milk would curdle, leading to unsightly – and possibly untasty – lumps in the finished dish.

“At any rate, Elros, regardless what people say now, Luthien didn’t seem too unhappy to be there. If anything, she struck me as biding her time. Given she proved herself capable of dealing with Sauron more or less single-handedly, I don’t think my uncle would have fared very well had he been trying to hold her against her will.”

Elros gave him a sour look, but didn’t argue. Celebrimbor judged his mild ire could be safely vented on mashing the roots once they were cooked, and set about making up the sweet syrup and nuts that would be drizzled over the mash.

“Mind if you go to make this yourselves, boys, you use the syrup from the red-leafs up in the hills, not birch syrup,” he instructed as he heated the syrup with a bit of butter, adding most of the nuts he’d measured out once the syrup and butter were well mixed. “The birch is easier to come by, especially now that it’s no longer safe to go sugaring on the mainland, but the taste is better with this variety.”

Elrond nodded, showing that he at least was paying attention. (Elros appeared to still be fulminating on Celegorm and Luthien.)

“It’s a good dish to make in hrívë,” Celebrimbor continued. “As long as you’ve a sufficient supply of the roots, of course. As you can see it’s not difficult to prepare, but it can be served as a side dish or as a meal all on its own.”

“Is this all you’re serving?” Elrond asked.

“No, I have a roasted chicken coming,” Celebrimbor laughed. “The oven here does well enough for small loaves of bread, but for roasting it’s safer to ask Gil-galad’s kitchens if they mind me using one of the larger ovens. I don’t ask often, and as I’m generally hosting Gil when I do, they’re usually amenable.”

He watched Elrond mentally file that tidbit away, visibly calculating that if the kitchens would do that for Celebrimbor…

Indeed, all he generally needed to do was send a bird prepared for roasting with sufficient time to cook, and it would arrive back ready for dinner without him needing to look in on it or trouble the kitchen staff further – often done better than he would have managed himself, larger oven or no.

He suspected Erestor would be bringing this evening’s roast any time now. Gil-galad’s steward was rather efficient, and had surely discovered where the principal members of the household were dining this evening.

“What else do you mean to serve?” Elrond wanted to know. “Anything else Sindarin?”

Celebrimbor knew better than to think Oropher would go so far as to thank him for getting the boys interested in Sindarin cookery, but it couldn’t hurt. His own repertoire was quite limited, so once they exhausted what he’d picked up from Merelin, the twins would have to apply to Oropher or some of his lords for further tutelage. (He doubted they’d hold out for Celeborn, since there was no telling when he and Galadriel would reappear on the island.)

 “I’ve a bean dish already made, and some winter fruit and cheeses,” Celebrimbor replied. “Nothing fancy. Gildor said he’d bring dessert. We can try some more Sindarin cookery another time if you want to see more.”

Aunt Eärwen had volunteered to make bread – and Celebrimbor hadn’t been about to tell her no, not when he knew it would be the taste of his childhood.  

“I’m surprised Gildor hasn’t hosted Arafinwë and Eärwen for dinner,” Elros said, rejoining the conversation. “They’re his grandparents, aren’t they?”

“Indeed – which is why they’re determined to host _him_ as often as possible,” Celebrimbor laughed. “Besides, I’m not sure Aunt Eärwen believes any of us when we tell her we can cook – I’m told her sons used to be quite dreadful at it in Aman, even Uncle Ingo.”

The twins looked slightly flummoxed by that concept, as well they might – being able to feed oneself and one’s guests creditably was part of basic adult competence in Beleriand, even when one hadn’t been raised by Fëanorions. Celebrimbor would lay odds it had never entered their heads that the peerless Finrod Felagund would be anything less than an able cook.

“Well, we aren’t Arafinwions, so she should believe _us_ when we say we can cook,” was Elros’ cheerful take on the situation.

“What?” he asked innocently when both his twin and his cousin blinked at this singular logic.

With a sigh, Celebrimbor removed the pot with the now cooked roots from the heat and set it on the counter.

“Mash,” he ordered.

When Elros hesitated, Celebrimbor added inspiringly, “Celegorm!”

Elros managed to keep the majority of the mash in the pot, and watched with interest as Celebrimbor drizzled the syrup over it and sprinkled the entire thing with the few remaining nuts.

“Smells delicious,” Elrond commented.

“Good! Here comes Erestor with the bird now. And look, we’re done with just enough time for your brother to make himself presentable again.”

“I’m…” Elros paused and looked down. “Oh, all right, maybe the apron would have been an idea. Stop laughing, both of you!”

“Bathroom is to the right of the stairs,” Celebrimbor advised. “And step lively – Uncle Ara is known for punctuality, which leaves you five minutes _exactly_.”

Elrond snickered at the ‘I only need three’ that drifted back down the steps in his brother’s wake.

“He’ll need the full five,” he corrected with a shake of his head.

As he wiped down the counter, clearing the last of Elros’ enthusiastic mashing, Celebrimbor glanced at Elrond.

“Well? What do you think?” he asked.

Elrond began to methodically rinse the cooking utensils.

“I think I would not mind doing this more often,” he said simply.

Celebrimbor was pleased to see what just might be a glimmer of happiness on Elrond’s face.

He smiled.

“Whenever you want, Elrond,” he said warmly. “Whenever you want.”


End file.
